From Thetis To Achilles
by pokernbetting
Summary: A Letter from Thetis to her son Achilles. POEM.


Disclaimer: Homer owns these characters from the epic, "The Iliad", not me.

A/N: I wrote this for a college Greek and Roman Mythology Creative Topic last semester- I based it on Ovid's Heroides, which were "letters" from Greek women to their heroic lovers. But in mine I chose Thetis to write to her son Achilles about how she felt watching Achilles from his birth to his death. I also wanted to make the poem sound as much as Ovid's did, so I tried to word my sentences the way I think he would have worded them. I hope it's to your liking. Please Review!

P.S.: For those of you who review and have a little extra time, I'd love it if you could add if you found any allusions that I added in my poem! But it's not necessary. I'd just love reviews in general, good or bad. Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

Thetis, daughter of Nereus, writes this letter to you – lion hearted Achilles.  
>For how the gods must love and despise me,<br>That they – Mighty Zeus, lord of thunderbolts and Poseidon of the fearful trident-  
>Force me to marry a mortal against my will,<br>(Though it was they who once battled for me above all others)  
>And bear a son more powerful than his father and all other men—mortal men.<p>

To you I have given the gifts the gods once showered  
>Upon the son of Aeacus, King of Aegina - the impenetrable armor<br>And horses born from harpy's wing and Zephyr's breath-  
>Yet immortality they keep from you, godlike Achilles.<br>My heart wept constantly, knowing that all too soon  
>You would meet the ferry man; and dwell there—<br>On some far off shore so different from my own.

Oh, how countless were the times I tried  
>To cheat you from the thread bearers, weavers of mortal souls.<br>Among the women of Scyros you hid well and were gifted a son  
>But your apathy for fine jewelry and fascination with the curved blade<br>Was your only fault. Had you been of age, peerless Achilles,  
>Shining Helen would have chose no other for a husband<br>And even cowardly Paris would not have dared challenge your claim.

Remember that it was I that you called that day at Troy  
>When the son of Atreus dishonored your name; and it was<br>I who wiped away your tears as you wept on my shoulder.  
>For you, glorious Achilles, I supplemented the father of gods himself<br>To grant you your prayer for he could not grant mine -  
>Glory and honor far surpassing that of any other Achaean<p>

Yet answer me this - Did you ever once think of your beloved Phthia  
>As you sat with the son of Menoetius and your faithful Myrmidons?<br>Were you not stirred by the story of your childhood by Phoenix, son of Agenor  
>Who treated you as his son for he had none of his own?<br>Did you think of it when you laid eyes on your beloved Patrokles,  
>Who was laid before you deathly still, eyes cast in shadows,<br>And whose body was stripped naked, bloodied by the war,  
>His borrowed armor taken by Hector himself.<p>

Who was it you thought of as you donned your newly crafted  
>Armor - matched only in glory to yourself - that I asked the<br>Lame god to craft with his own hands for you, my short lived son.  
>As I gazed upon the shield perhaps it was then that I realized<br>You would not live much longer.

But still I shed a tear for Troy's king Priam when word came  
>Of what you did to his eldest son. I cannot blame you, angry Achilles<br>For he took away the friend and companion you held closest to your heart.  
>Perhaps it was for the best that you took the life of shining helmed Hector,<br>So he would not have to bear the shame of watching  
>As you threw his young son from the walls of his own city.<br>But grief still tears at my heart For Hecuba and her husband,  
>For they have lost –as I soon will - a beloved son.<p>

How I mourned at your funeral pyre, son of Peleus,  
>If only I had held you elsewhere when I bathed you;<br>Holding you by the ankle in the River Styx whose waters  
>Were said to make mortal men invincible<br>Yet even then I could not find it in my heart to blame  
>The shining far darter who was said to have guided<br>The arrow that dealt you your fatal blow.  
>But in my heart how I so deeply yearned<br>That I had the strength of glorious Heracles,  
>To wrestle Thanatos himself for your soul;<br>That you may live again, ageless and immortal.

Had the clever son of Laertes not gone to Scyros,  
>Using wit passed down from the winged messenger himself,<br>Or the goddess of strife not thrown the golden apple –  
>Shining beautiful and pure to hide its true intent,<br>Perhaps then you would have stayed with the daughters of Nereus  
>Living out your days in peace; content – without glory.<p> 


End file.
